MS-WU-MSS008-3-50-2

[4896] no better. [4897] It is no worse either. [4898] I have crutches now. [4899] I shall go
faster, all will go faster. [4900] They will be happy days. [4901] I shall learn.
[4902] All there was to sell I have sold. [4903] But I had heavy debts. [4904] I have been
a man long enough, I shall not put up with it any more, I shall not try
any more. [4905] I shall never light this lamp again. [4906] I am going to blow it
out and go into the garden.

[4907] I think of the long May days, June days,
when I lived in the garden. [4908] One day I talked to Hanna. [4909] She gave me news
of Zulu, of the Elsner sisters. [4910] She knew who I was, she was not afraid
of me. [4911] She never went out, she disliked going out. [4912] She talked to me
from her window. [4913] The news was bad, but might have been worse. [4914] There
was a bright side.

[4915] They were lovely days. [4916] The winter had been
exceptionally rigorous, everybody said so. [4917] We had therefore a right to
this superb summer. [4918] I do not know if we had a right to it. [4919] My birds had
not been killed. [4920] They were wild birds. [4921] And yet quite trusting. [4922] I
recognized them and they seemed to recognize me. [4923] But one never knows.
[4924] Some were missing and some were new.

[4925] I tried to understand their language
better. [4926] Without having recourse to mine. [4927] They were the longest, loveliest
days of all the year. [4928] I lived in the garden. [4929] I have spoken of a voice
telling me things. [4930] I was getting to know it better now, to understand
what it wanted. [4931] It did not use the words that Moran had been taught when
he was little and that he in his turn had taught to his little one.

[4932] So
that at first I did not know what it wanted. [4933] But in the end I understood
this language. [4934] I understood it, I understand it, all wrong perhaps. [4935] That
is not what matters. [4936] It told me to write th^{e r}eport. [4937] Does this mean I
am freer now than I was? [4938] I do not know. [4939] I shall learn. [4940] Then I went back
into the house and wrote, It is midnight. [4941] The rain is beating on the
windows. [4942] It was not midnight. [4943] It was not raining.